Chapter 554: Ending the Nightmare
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Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
A.T. Field (Wall of the Mind)
Definition:
Absolute Domain Expansion: Use the combined power of your magic power, spiritual power, soul power, authority, and so on as a link. You can expand an absolute domain that can defend against all attacks.
Absolute Domain (Physics): Any force and kinetic impact acting on the absolute domain will spread out in the form of mechanical waves. During this diffusion process, mechanical waves will be continuously stored. The wider the domain, the higher the upper limit of the stored mechanical waves.
Absolute Domain (Energy): Any energy and elemental impact acting on the absolute domain will be transformed into ma.s.s energy stored in the domain. The wider the absolute domain, the higher the upper limit of the stored ma.s.s energy.
Absolute Domain (Mind): Any spiritual attack, mind attack, and soul attack will be blocked outside the absolute domain. This effect can be triggered automatically.
Absolute Domain (Counterattack): All the mechanical wave energy and ma.s.s energy stored in the absolute domain can be released through reversing the absolute domain. The energy will not decrease during this process.
This was the new skill Roy created for himself: A.T. Field!
After encountering Trag’Oul’s dream attacks and Lilith controlling him with the reproduction authority, Roy realized that although he now had a powerful body and energy, he still had weaknesses in mental and spiritual defense. So after thinking about it, he used the souls he had stored before and the souls he had obtained from trading with the seven demon kings to make up for this shortcoming.
In fact, in the beginning, he wanted to create an invincible s.h.i.+eld for himself, which was a s.h.i.+eld like Divine s.h.i.+eld that could defend against all attacks. However, the system was relatively inflexible, and it followed strict terms for all definitions. In other words, definitions such as ‘invincible’, ‘infinite’, and ‘eternal’ would not be expressed with imaginary numbers like intelligent life, but they would really be that way.
If Roy really dared to use the word ‘invincible’ to define the ability, then the system could really create a skill that could even survive the Big Bang for him. But this way, the number of souls he needed would be astronomical, and it was definitely not something he could afford…
Therefore, in the end, Roy borrowed the AT. Field from Neon Genesis Evangelion and created a super s.h.i.+eld that combined defense and attack. After careful deliberation and modification, he finally spent nearly ten million souls to materialize this super s.h.i.+eld.
He defined physical and energy attacks in a broad sense for this s.h.i.+eld, making its protection as diverse as possible. However, this defense was not absolute resistance but cleverly used the method of absorbing energy to store for defense. This way, he wouldn’t have to spend more souls. Moreover, he had also abandoned the strange psychological factors of the A.T. Field and simplified it, saving another sum.
Although he called it an A.T. Field, his A.T. Field was very different. But he couldn’t be bothered to think about the name of this s.h.i.+eld, so he directly called it A.T. Field.
Of course, this s.h.i.+eld was not invincible and could be broken, but the upper limit of the defense was calculated based on Roy’s comprehensive strength. In other words, enemies whose strength didn’t exceed his could forget about breaking his s.h.i.+eld with their attacks.
Roy didn’t quite understand how this comprehensive strength was calculated. He had handed it over to the system to calculate it adaptively. After materializing this skill, he had used it with all his might. Through his perception, he estimated that the absolute domain he could fully expand was a circular area with a radius of about 32.3 kilometers and a diameter of 64.6 kilometers. This absolute domain was invisible and formless. Only after receiving an attack would overlapping golden polygons appear on the attack surface of the domain. These polygons would spread out like ripples on water as the enemy continued to attack until they covered the entire absolute domain. At that time, it meant that the storage of the domain had reached the upper limit.
Of course, Roy could decide how large this absolute domain was. Moreover, the size of the domain had nothing to do with the upper limit of energy storage. Even if it was just a circle around him, the upper limit of the energy it absorbed was the same as that of full expansion.
If the enemy could not break the A.T. Field s.h.i.+eld of the absolute domain immediately, all the attack energy would be absorbed. Then Roy could reverse the absolute domain and return the absorbed energy to the enemy.
This was a combination of the Star Absorption Technique + Star-s.h.i.+fting Techniqueo.
Of course, what Roy valued the most about this absolute domain was the defense for the mind and spirit. He had sacrificed the absorption and counterattack effect of mental attacks and changed the spiritual defense to being automatically triggered. After all, mental attacks were sometimes very strange, and he might fall for them unknowingly. The effect would be better if it was automatically triggered.
This A.T. Field skill was Roy’s largest investment of souls so far. At a price of nearly ten million souls, it was more expensive than all his previous self-enchantment skills.
Relying on this Wall of the Mind, Roy blocked Mephisto’s authority attack. The moment the Seed of Hatred hit Roy, it instantly triggered the spiritual defense effect, waking him up.
Roy wasn’t too sure if Mephisto’s hatred authority had any other uses and moves, but it was simply a fool’s dream to target Roy through a mental attack.
Of course, he wouldn’t explain this to Mephisto. He knew that this body and soul were only half of Mephisto’s original body, so he didn’t waste time with him and directly threw his soul into Kanai’s Cube.
Turning his head to look at the other end of the battlefield, he found Lilith and Diablo fighting ‘inseparably’…
With this observation, Roy suddenly discovered a situation. Diablo didn’t seem to have separated half of his soul and authority like the other six demon kings. The combat strength he displayed was quite powerful, and Mephisto’s just now couldn’t compare to it.
Whats going on? Roy was a little puzzled. Why is Diablo alone unique?
What Roy didn’t know was that Diablo was actually feeling stifled! Although Diablo was the youngest of the seven demon kings (this refers to being the latest to enter this world), he had the strongest magic power among them.
Perhaps this was because he had not created too many clones in other worlds. Moreover, his authority, fear, was the easiest to grow.
Fear was an emotion inherent in intelligent life. For example, Roy’s despair authority required the creation of special environments to obtain it. But Diablo’s was different. He could find this emotion in almost any soul.
Every soul he devoured would nourish his divine spark authority.
Even when his infamy spread, all intelligent life that had fear of his name would invisibly increase his strength…
Of course, it was easy to increase the power of an authority, but sometimes, the authority might not necessarily be useful. Fear was a kind of authority that would be restrained by powerful wills. But in any case, in the past, Diablo had rarely encountered opponents that he couldn’t defeat.
Precisely because of this powerful strength, Diablo was quite proud. So when he heard from Mephisto that Lilith had killed him and held his skull in a future scene, he was very unconvinced.
He wanted to see how Lilith would kill him!
Therefore, when Mephisto proposed the plan, he didn’t partic.i.p.ate. Mephisto was an ancient demon and was used to using all kinds of schemes and plots, but Diablo was braver and preferred to fight head-on. He didn’t separate his soul and divine spark but fought Lilith in the Chaos Sanctuary at his peak.
However, after truly fighting Lilith, Diablo realized how difficult and terrifying she was. All of his attacks seemed to be predicted, and she could easily dodge them with her predictive movements.
Just as Roy had said, fighting against a seer was extremely painful. The continuous failures of attacks would make people extremely irritable. Diablo roared angrily, but he could only rely on roaring to deal damage.
The various powerful attacks released by Diablo shook the entire Burning h.e.l.ls. In the area where he and Lilith were fighting, the ground had already split open, and fierce magma kept spewing out from the ground. Powerful lightning storms were raging in this area, and no demons dared to approach because once they brushed past, they would turn into ashes.
However, even though he enlarged the attack range, Lilith easily dodged his various attacks. Even if she didn’t dodge, she would strike the weak points and easily disintegrate the attacks.
Perhaps Lilith’s physical strength was a relatively large weakness, but under the cover of her foresight, this weakness had long been completely hidden. She seemed to be playing with Diablo, making it difficult to believe that this was a battle between two demon kings.
Moreover, Roy noticed that Lilith’s Blood Sea had always existed in the area where they were fighting. Diablo inevitably had to fight Lilith in the Blood Sea, and in this Blood Sea, a purplish-red mist was spreading over his body, which was the manifestation of his demon blood evaporating. Lilith had a cold and sinister smile on her face, as though she planned to torture Diablo to death in this way.
Even for a demon king, there was a limit to Diablo’s self-healing ability. Lilith continuously strengthened the Blood Sea. Once the evaporation effect of the Blood Sea exceeded his self-healing ability, the Blood Sea would devour him bit by bit!
Seeing Lilith’s victory in sight, Roy didn’t disturb their battle and stopped in the sky to watch the show.
Time pa.s.sed quickly. About four hours later, the alliance army eliminated all the h.e.l.l demons around the Chaos Sanctuary. At this time, the battle between Lilith and Diablo was also over.
Diablo’s body was already melting. The flesh on his body was dripping like a melted candle and disappearing into the Blood Sea. His self-healing ability could no longer keep up with the melting speed, and his left leg and waist were melted to the point where even his bones were visible.
Diablo wasn’t dead yet, but he was already panting loudly, looking like he was at the end of his rope.
At this moment, Lilith finally began to fight back. She controlled the Blood Sea to roll up a huge vortex that sucked Diablo in. The ultra-high -speed vortex was like countless sharp blades that continuously cut Diablo’s flesh, accelerating the melting. He roared unwillingly and tried to struggle out of the vortex, but he was swept in again after just a few steps out.
After repeating this several times, Diablo’s enormous body finally collapsed and sank into the Blood Sea as the thick Blood Sea completely devoured him. When he resurfaced, he was only a skeleton.
An incomparably black soul emitting deep light emerged from the Blood Sea. It was Diablo’s soul. He wanted to escape from the battlefield, but the Blood Sea formed a huge red water ball that firmly trapped him. His soul darted left and right in the water ball, but he couldn’t break out of the cage of blood.
Lilith walked forward and came in front of Diablo’s skeleton. She bent down and stretched out her hand to take off his skull. She held the skull with curved demon horns in her hand and expressionlessly reproduced the scene she had seen of the future…
Then Lilith turned around, raised Diablo’s skull high, and shouted at the remaining nephalem, “My children, the nightmare is over. You can cheer!”
However, her words didn’t receive any response at first. The remaining nephalem only looked at her in a daze.
After a long time, a barbarian suddenly laughed out loud. This barbarian was lying on the ground with his back against a rock. One of his hands was gone because a demon had bitten it off, and his right eye was blind. Looking at his lower body, his two legs were full of bite marks, and there was a big hole in his abdomen. His intestines were slowly flowing out, making him look extremely tragic.
But his remaining hand held his weapon tightly, never relaxing…
This dying barbarian laughed loudly, and his laughter gradually infected the remaining soldiers, making them laugh as well. These soldiers were almost all in the same miserable state. Every one of them had a large number of serious injuries on their bodies. As they laughed, some of them quickly fell silent…
But like the barbarian, they were still holding their weapons tightly until the moment of their deaths!
Although Lilith and Roy had defeated Mephisto and Diablo relatively easily, for the low-level warriors, this battle had been incomparably tragic. Endless h.e.l.l demons had come wave after wave, and the warriors relied on their flesh and blood bodies to block them.
Soldiers had their duties as soldiers, and leaders had their duties as leaders. Although Roy and Lilith could help them relieve some pressure on the battlefield, they couldn’t make this pressure disappear.
Moreover, for humans, the fruits of victory obtained through valiant struggle were even sweeter, were they not?
Lilith merely held Diablo’s skull in her hand and looked at the smiles on the faces of these dying nephalem warriors. After a long time, some of the nephalem warriors who could still move stood up with difficulty and knelt on one knee toward Lilith.
“First Mother, thank you for ending the nightmare…”
Diablo was the existence with the deepest malice toward the humans of Sanctuary among the seven demon kings. His name could indeed make nightmares for humans. And now, Lilith had used his head to dispel the shadows in the hearts of humans.
Roy looked on from the side. Most of the demon army he summoned from the
Abyss had already died in the war. Fat Tiger was riddled with wounds, and Sareth was dragging his exhausted body to heal him. Julia and Benia had many wounds on their bodies, and they were already so exhausted that they had fallen to the ground.
The only one who was in decent shape was Rafaro in the sky, but he had also been attacked by many flying demons.
“Let’s go and destroy the h.e.l.lforge first!” Lilith shouted at Roy.
Regarding the separation of the souls and divine sparks of the seven demon kings, Lilith and Roy didn’t disclose it to the nephalem, so they thought that the war was over. But Roy and Lilith knew that they still needed to go to the spatial crevice where Trag’Oul was and kill the remaining halves of the souls and divine sparks of the seven demon kings.
But before that, they had to destroy the h.e.l.lforge.
The so-called h.e.l.lforge was actually a ma.s.sive magma sea behind the Chaos Sanctuary. This magma sea occupied an area of more than ten thousand square kilometers, and it stretched as far as the eye could see. This magma sea was the core of the entire Burning h.e.l.ls. The tributaries it spread out flowed throughout the Burning h.e.l.ls. It was the high temperatures and toxicity created by this magma that made this place suitable for demons to survive. Looking down from the sky, one would find that the entire magma sea was in a circular funnel shape, looking like the surface of a forge. This was the origin of the name of the h.e.l.lforge.
Legend had it that this magma sea was formed by the rotting flesh and blood of the seven-headed demon dragon Tathamet after he died fighting Anu. Some scholars of Sanctuary had written this in their books, but this was not the case.
According to Lilith, there was a giant crystal like Anu’s spine in this magma sea. But unlike Anu’s spine crystal containing holy power, this crystal was a shadow crystal with powerful dark power!
For countless years, this shadow crystal had been radiating its power to the Burning h.e.l.ls. This powerful dark power created a magma sea and an unstable crust, and it was used by the seven demon kings to transform their respective territories. It was precisely because of the existence of this shadow crystal that the souls of demons could bind to it like a Gate of the Abyss, making it their temporary resurrection point.
As long as this crystal was destroyed, the souls of the dead h.e.l.l demons would no longer be able to stay in this world and would be expelled back to the Abyss…